Better-than-Takeout Potstickers

Gyoza is one of my husband’s favorite meals of all time- and I feel much better about feeding my husband gyoza instead of freezer pizza on busy nights. (We call potstickers by their Japanese name- Gyoza.) My mother-in-law so kindly shared this recipe with me. She lived in Japan for a year and a half and brought home some wonderful recipes! During the past three years of marriage, I have slowly tweaked the recipe (Such as amounts of garlic or soy sauce) to make the gyoza exactly how we want.

Something I figured out pretty early on is that gyoza is actually an easy freezer meal! While it is time consuming to fold all of the gyoza, after that, it’s super simple to pop some of the frozen gyoza into a pan and put some rice in the rice cooker and voila! A quick and delicious dinner in under an hour for busy weeknights!

Recipe

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup of green onions, chopped finely
• 1 cup cabbage, chopped finely
• 1 clove of garlic, minced
• 1 lb ground beef or pork
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1/4 – 1/2 cup of quality soy sauce (I like using 1/3)
• 1-2 packages of gyoza wrappers
• A small bowl of water for sealing the gyoza
• A pan with a lid- I prefer to use a cast iron pan

Directions:

• Mix everything together in a bowl.
• Scoop about 1/2 a teaspoon of the mixture into a gyoza wrap.

• Dip your finger into the water and brush it along half of the gyoza wrap’s edge.
• Press to seal.

• Crimp the edges.

• At this point you can either put them on a baking tray to flash freeze them before placing into a container or you can cook them.
• To cook, place 1-2 Tablespoons of oil into a heated pan and pan fry the gyoza for 1-2 minutes.
• Add 1/4 cup of water to the pan and put the lid on.
• Steam the gyoza until the water is gone.Serve with hot rice and steamed carrots or broccoli.

Side Notes:

• Gyoza wrappers and wonton wrappers are not the same thing! Wonton wrapper fry up nicely, but don’t steam very well.
• If the water is gone and you aren’t sure if the gyoza are done, cut open one of them to see if they are still pink.
• For the frozen gyoza, you cook it the same way as the fresh gyoza. They take a little bit longer, but you don’t need to add extra water.
• You can serve these with soy sauce, but our favorite way to eat them is with our teriyaki sauce recipe here.